


Satchmo Burke, Wonder Dog

by china_shop



Category: White Collar
Genre: AU, Backstory, Crack, F/M, Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-04
Updated: 2010-08-04
Packaged: 2017-10-10 22:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/105180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/china_shop/pseuds/china_shop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Right from the start, Elizabeth knew that Peter should never have fallen in love with her.</p><p>For crack bingo: Mind control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Satchmo Burke, Wonder Dog

**1\. **

Right from the start, Elizabeth knew that Peter should never have fallen in love with her. He liked sports, Springsteen and beer. He seemed to have spent the last five years hiking in the wilderness or travelling around Europe with less than fifty dollars in his wallet, and all of his favorite clothes were falling apart. He paid off his credit card every month. When his hair got in his eyes, he went to a barber's shop and got a fourteen-dollar cut. He was in law enforcement, for Christ's sake!

Sure, he was smart and kind, and he had a way of smiling with his eyes that made her go weak at the knees. And sure, the sex was smoking hot. But they just weren't compatible. They wouldn't even have met if his friend hadn't dragged him to that party on East 14th, and Peter hadn't spilled a tumbler of cheap rum on the floor and then caught her when she slipped over in it.

That's what she told herself as she lay on her front in Adorned, getting a pirate flag tattooed on her ass. It would never work out—Peter was just too damned wholesome.

   
   
**2\. **

Elizabeth didn't belong with someone like Peter. She was sophisticated and worldly, and she liked expensive things. Her apartment was full of intricate, incomprehensible artworks and her kitchen bristled with implements Peter had never seen before. So did her bedroom.

Worst of all, she loved parties. She liked to arrive after eleven, drink a lot and flirt with half the people there—men _and_ women. And she only left before dawn if she hit it off with someone, or if there was a police raid. She might as well have lived on another planet, and Peter would've forgotten all about her if he could've. His mom had been trying to hook him up with Jodie-Ann Mitchell from her church for months, and _she_ sounded nice and dependable, and not like someone who'd want to dine on unpleasant delicacies in the trendy restaurant of the moment, or get high on a rooftop in her underwear, or buy slurpees at three in the morning and drink them in the park.

That park adventure had led to some pretty amazing sex, though. Peter didn't know Jodie-Ann at all, but he suspected she wouldn't be quite so wild and uninhibited in bed, so willing to try anything. Elizabeth had a wicked gleam and a smile that dared Peter not to act shocked. She'd licked him _everywhere_—even now, he blushed at the memory—and he didn't think he'd come so hard in his life.

He worried about her: that she'd get arrested for smoking pot, or that someone would take advantage of the fact she couldn't run in those strappy high heels. He tried to interest her in sports and politics, and one time they started a long, complex argument about America's foreign policy and civil liberties, but Elizabeth had just bought a sheer coffee-colored silk top that slithered off her shoulders whenever she shrugged, so they got distracted before Peter found out if she really was a communist or just teasing him.

   
   
**3\. **

Elizabeth freed her foot from the sheets and stretched languorously. Peter was snoring, and she couldn't decide if that was annoying or sweet. She scraped her long black-painted fingernail along his spine, counting the vertebrae all the way down to his ass, and for a flicker of a moment she wished she was someone who belonged with someone like Peter. Out of the corner of her eye, she could glimpse another life: one where they were settled down and respectable and steadfastly happy together. Where the drive to get high or go on the occasional shoplifting spree just—wasn't. Where her restless itch was soothed by something deep and corny—strawberry confetti, vanilla kisses and apple pie.

She made a face, slid out of bed, carefully not waking Peter, and pulled on yesterday's clothes. She needed to get out of here, go somewhere she could breathe. As she was letting herself out his front door, she brushed against his skis propped in the corner of the hallway, but she managed to steady them before they crashed to the floor.

She needed to talk to Charmaine. But when she got to Charmaine's place, she almost didn't recognize it: the jumble of comics and takeout fliers and stolen wallets and jewelry that usually cluttered her table were tucked away neatly in a box on the gleaming kitchen counter, a smell of _baking_ hung in the air, and there was a fat flaxen puppy nosing around the floor, snuffling to itself, while Charmaine sat with her back to the wall and watched, calm and happy and not even wearing any makeup.

The last time Elizabeth had seen Charmaine without lipstick had been when Charmaine drank bad eggnog at a Christmas Eve party two years earlier and threw up for twenty-four hours. Charmaine put on makeup to watch TV in her underwear.

"Hey, El-belle," she said. "Meet Satchmo."

"You have a puppy?" said Elizabeth, kneeling down despite herself and despite what she knew about the history of that kitchen floor. "Where did you get a puppy? You didn't steal it, did you?"

"What? No!" Charmaine sounded bizarrely shocked at the idea. "He's not mine. I'm just looking after him for a day or two while my brother tries to find him a new home. Turns out his daughter has allergies. Do you want a cookie?"

The puppy trundled over to nose Elizabeth's hand, and she had the unsettling sensation that time was _narrowing_. She wasn't even sure what that meant, but it was weird. The puppy blinked at her with liquid innocence, and she rubbed his soft furry ear between her fingers and crooned, "Hi there, baby. You're so sweet."

She'd never wanted a dog. Her life was already so full, she didn't have time to look after one. But there was something special about Satchmo—it was like he was radiating sunshine or something, making her feel calmer and more satisfied with the world.

Charmaine handed her a cookie and Elizabeth took an absent-minded bite, and then spat it out immediately. "This is disgusting, Charm! What did you put in it?"

"I didn't have any flour," said Charmaine defensively. "So I used baking powder instead. It's made of the same stuff, right?"

"I don't think so." Elizabeth sniffed the cookie and held it out to Satchmo. He didn't even try to taste it. Such a good, wise puppy! Elizabeth sighed and tapped the remains of the cookie on the worn linoleum, watching the inedible crumbs scatter. "Charm, what am I going to do about Peter?"

   
   
**4\. **

Peter woke to a crash from the hallway. "Elizabeth?"

There was no answer. It was the middle of the day. He was alone, naked and hung-over, and he wasn't sure where he'd left his gun the night before, something that was only ever a question when Elizabeth had stayed over. He yanked on sweatpants and grabbed his baseball bat from the corner, but by that time, Elizabeth was standing in his bedroom doorway. She looked resolute, as if she were doing something brave, and she was holding a puppy. "Hi, Peter. I need to talk to you."

"Where did the puppy come from?" asked Peter. "Did it climb in the window?" That seemed highly unlikely: its legs were only a few inches long and Peter lived on the fourth floor. Plus Elizabeth was fully dressed. "What time is it?"

"He's called Satchmo," said Elizabeth. She put Satchmo on the corner of the bed, where he promptly curled up and went to sleep. Then she took the baseball bat out of Peter's unresisting hand and gave him a gentle shove toward the bed too.

"Uh," said Peter. He licked his lips. "I'm not—I mean, puppies might be crossing a line, Elizabeth. They don't really—" He waved his hand awkwardly. "They don't do it for me."

Elizabeth frowned at him for a second, perplexed, then burst out laughing. "The puppy is not for sex," she said, when she'd caught her breath. "Jesus, Peter. That would be—ugh! No! Is that what you think of me?"

Peter sat on the edge of the bed, feeling foolish and relieved. "No, I just—I never know what to expect from you." He scratched the back of his neck and looked up at her. "Most of the time, that's good."

"Yeah, I know." Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "I'm the wild child. But—" She took a deep breath. "Okay, pretend that this puppy has a super power, and that his super power is domesticity. Pretend that—" She sat down cross-legged on the bed, and when Peter turned to face her, she took his hand and bent his fingers back gently, one after the other, like she was using them to organize her thoughts. "Pretend that if we want to be happy together, to make this work in the long run, then this puppy is the key to doing that."

Peter's pulse thudded and he almost stopped breathing. He reached out and cradled the curve of her cheek. "Elizabeth, are you—? I mean, I love you how you are." That was the first time he'd said it, and it was amazing how easily the words slipped out. "I love your crazy, wild-child, beautiful, sexy, unpredictable—you."

"But we don't fit together," said Elizabeth, softly. "And I want to."

"You'd be willing to change?" That blew Peter's mind. Elizabeth had already stayed with him longer than he'd believed possible, and now she was prepared to put that whole dangerous, sophisticated side of her life behind her?

"If you are," said Elizabeth. "I mean, in moderation, you know? You stop climbing every available mountain and disappearing to the ass-end of Bulgaria every vacation, and I can—" She swallowed hard and ducked her head so he couldn't see her face. "Peter, do you want to get married?"

"That sounds—" Peter kissed the top of her head, since that was all he could see. He wanted to take her in his arms, but she didn't look like someone who would welcome a hug right now. "—perfect and impossible. Do you really think you could be happy with me just because we adopted a puppy? I'm not—"

Elizabeth looked up, and her eyes were shining. "You're impossible and perfect."

She pushed him back against the headboard so she could straddle his lap. Up till now, that would have led to one thing and one thing only, but Elizabeth was hugging him hard, not rubbing against him or trying to turn him on. "We can do this," she whispered in his ear. "Marry me, Peter Burke. And have faith in the Satchmo."

From the foot of the bed came a small puppy-snuffle of contentment.

   
   
**Epilogue – twelve years later**

"You're in my house, on my couch, with my wife," Peter ranted. He threw up his hand. "And now you're petting my dog."

Neal Caffrey looked up from kissing Satchmo's head, and Elizabeth hid a grin, knowing that Peter was secretly thinking the same thing she was: that really, it was best for everyone if Neal spent some quality time with Satchmo. Lots of quality time.

 

END


End file.
